It works its strange alchemy with riveting force… With this extraordinary film, Scorsese confirms his standing among our finest young directors. It is, among other things, a testament to the versatility that last produced Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Experiencing the film on an insulated, intellectual level is a virtual impossibility, thanks to a central performance so individualized and affecting that Travis is never in danger of becoming a statistic or a symbol.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

The bonds are close and tight between Scorsese's first film and his most recent effort. And yet Taxi Driver stands alone. It is original, harrowing, instant American mythology.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Taxi Driver is so volatile it nearly explodes from the screen. Under Martin Scorsese's brilliant direction, it works a dramatic tension that is inescapable, carefully, systematically straitjacketing its audience in the problems of its central character.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Scorsese has spit all his disgust right in our faces. Well, you don't have to like it. But when the doors of the [theater] opened to let us out, there was New York and I knew, I knew it was no longer possible to avoid the horror.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Remove the cataclysmic ending from Taxi Driver and it would be one smashingly good motion picture. As it stands, the film is beautiful to look at, exciting to listen to, but much too much to stomach.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 6, 2023

Whatever else anybody comes to think about Taxi Driver, it has a muscle-tensing, skin-prickling, apprehensive suspense that builds from those first unsettling moments like an air-raid siren.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

All these things might be reconciled and resolved, if only the film probed deeper instead of trying merely to astonish and dazzle. Obviously, it is the offspring of an unholy union.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Like any genuine nightmare, Taxi Driver induces terror because its hideousness grows out of pure, if awful, human truth.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Scorsese and cinematographer Michael Chapman create a funky, overripe New York that's like a nightmare Travis can never stop dreaming... But first and last Taxi Driver belongs to Robert De Niro, the most remarkable young actor of the American screen.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Even if [the actors] were all better -- and part of the picture's trouble is that there is no way for them to be much better -- Taxi Driver would still be no more than the 1976 dark-mirror image of 1936 romance.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Taxi Driver is a fascinating film. It is strong and moving, and it often affects the emotions like a blow to the stomach. It is not for the squeamish, but it is one superior piece of motion picture artistry.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Whether it is a doomsday masterpiece or an exploitative ripoff of national paranoia, or both, as I believe, be forewarned that Taxi Driver has a hard R rating and is definitely not suitable for the squeamish.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Scorsese is obviously talented. He knows how to build mood, tension and atmosphere... But he's short on coherence where it matters most. His films are beginning to look like they've been made by a promising upstart who believes his own press clippings.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

The director has created a highly effective profile of an incipient killer and De Niro's portrayal of the obsessively mad Travis is terrifically convincing.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Taxi Driver is shocking and indulgent, and it's compelling. I don't think I agree with it or even approve of it, but I couldn't help admiring it.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

So sure, there are lonely people out there -- but Taxi Driver fails to offer an imitable solution to lone wolfishness. The outcome is about as senseless as the director's closeup of a glass of fizzy Alka-Seltzer.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Taxi Driver manages to be an engrossing film, owing to the fascinating street atmosphere created by Scorsese's dynamic camera work and the authentic performances of the entire cast. De Niro's portrayal is particularly haunting.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

I didn't mind the sordidness, the violence, or the mock-ironic ending. What I did mind about the film was its life-denying spirit, its complete lack of curiosity about the possibilities of people.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023

Aided by Robert De Niro's remarkable performance, Taxi Driver works very well... Where it seems most notable, though, is in the extent to which it catches the feeling of paranoia which one can hardly avoid noticing in New York.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2023